But his calm, unperturbed manner reassured them in an instant. That led into a debate on the economy, in which Webster attacked the institution of slavery and Hayne labeled the policy of protectionist tariffs as the consolidation of a strong central government, which he called the greatest of evils. But the gentleman apprehends that this will make the Union a rope of sand. Sir, I have shown that it is a power indispensably necessary to the preservation of the constitutional rights of the states, and of the people.
The Webster-Hayne Debates | Teaching American History At the foundation of the constitution of these new Northwestern states, . He joined Hayne in using this opportunity to try to detach the West from the East, and restore the old cooperation of the West and the South against New England. His ideas about federalism and his interpretation of the Constitution as a document uniting the states under one supreme law were highly influential in the eyes of his contemporaries and would influence the rebuilding of the nation after the Civil War. . It has been said that Hayne was Calhoun's sword and buckler and that he returned to the contest refreshed each morning by nightly communions with the Vice-President, drawing auxiliary supplies from the well-stored arsenal of his powerful and subtle mind. We will not look back to inquire whether our fathers were guiltless in introducing slaves into this country. Then, in January of 1830, a senator from Connecticut introduced a proposal to the Senate stating that the federal government should stop surveying the lands west of the Mississippi River. . We do not impose geographical limits to our patriotic feeling or regard; we do not follow rivers and mountains, and lines of latitude, to find boundaries, beyond which public improvements do not benefit us. The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts while he exonerates me personally from the charge, intimates that there is a party in the country who are looking to disunion. Correct answers: 2 question: Which of the following is the best definition of a hypothesis? Though Webster made an impassioned argument, the political, social, and economic traditions of New England informed his ideas about the threatened nation. | 12
Webster-Hayne debate - Wikisource, the free online library Even the revenue system of this country, by which the whole of our pecuniary resources are derived from indirect taxation, from duties upon imports, has done much to weaken the responsibility of our federal rulers to the people, and has made them, in some measure, careless of their rights, and regardless of the high trust committed to their care. - Women's Rights Facts & Significance, Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points: Definition, Speech & Summary, Fireside Chats: Definition & Significance, JFK's New Frontier: Definition, Speech & Program. Union, of itself, is considered by the disciples of this school as hardly a good. In The Webster-Hayne Debate, Christopher Childers examines the context of the debate between Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and his Senate colleague Robert S. Hayne of South Carolina in January 1830.Readers will finish the book with a clear idea of the reason Webster's "Reply" became so influential in its own day. . This feeling, always carefully kept alive, and maintained at too intense a heat to admit discrimination or reflection, is a lever of great power in our political machine. He accused them of a desire to check the growth of the West in the interests of protection. New England, the Union, and the Constitution in its integrity, all were triumphantly vindicated. . I understand him to maintain an authority, on the part of the states, thus to interfere, for the purpose of correcting the exercise of power by the general government, of checking it, and of compelling it to conform to their opinion of the extent of its powers. . The Webster-Hayne debate concluded with Webster's ringing endorsement of "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable." In contrast, Hayne espoused the radical states' rights doctrine of nullification, believing that a state could prevent a federal law from being enforced within its borders. What they said I believe; fully and sincerely believe, that the Union of the states is essential to the prosperity and safety of the states. Under that system, the legal actionthe application of law to individuals, belonged exclusively to the states. It was a great and salutary measure of prevention. It is worth noting that in the course of the debate, on the very floor of the Senate, both Hayne and Webster raised the specter of civil war 30 years before it commenced. During the course of the debates, the senators touched on pressing political issues of the daythe tariff, Western lands, internal improvementsbecause behind these and others were two very different understandings of the origin and nature of the American Union. After his term as a senator, he served as the Governor of South Carolina. Crittenden Compromise Plan & Reception | What was the Crittenden Compromise? 136 lessons The excited crowd which had packed the Senate chamber, filling every seat on the floor and in the galleries, and all the available standing room, dispersed after the orator's last grand apostrophe had died away in the air, with national pride throbbing at the heart. The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions Add Song of the Spinners from the Lowell Offering. The gentleman takes alarm at the sound. Webster denied it and, attempting to draw Hayne into a direct confrontation, disparaged slavery and attacked the constitutional scruples of southern nullifiers and their apparent willingness to calculate the Union's value in monetary terms. The other way was through the sale of federally-owned land to private citizens. The 1830 WebsterHayne debate centered around the South Carolina nullification crisis of the late 1820s, but historians have largely ignored the sectional interests underpinning Webster's argument on behalf of Unionism and a transcendent nationalism. . . More specifically, some of the issues facing Congress during this period included: Robert Y. Hayne served as Senator of South Carolina from 1823 to 1832. Webster's second reply to Hayne, in January 1830, became a famous defense of the federal union: "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable." Just beneath the surface of this debate lay the elements of the developing sectional crisis between North and South. . Create your account. . . He remained a Southern Unionist through his long public career and a good type of the growing class of statesman devoted to slave interests who loved the Union as it was and doted upon its compromises. . [O]pinions were expressed yesterday on the general subject of the public lands, and on some other subjects, by the gentleman from South Carolina [Senator Robert Hayne], so widely different from my own, that I am not willing to let the occasion pass without some reply. What can I say? Several state governments or courts, some in the north, had espoused the idea of nullification prior to 1828.
Webster's Reply to Hayne - National Park Service Since as Vice President and President of the Senate, Calhoun could not take place in the debate, Hayne represented the pro-nullification point-of-view. Available in hard copy and for download. Drama, suspense, it's all there. Is it the creature of the state legislatures, or the creature of the people? . He was a lawyer turned congressional representative who eventually worked his way to the office of U.S. Secretary of State.
What was the main issue of the Webster-Hayne debate? But, sir, the gentleman is mistaken. Regional Conflict in America: Debate Over States' Rights. copyright 2003-2023 Study.com. The gentleman insists that the states have no right to decide whether the constitution has been violated by acts of Congress or not,but that the federal government is the exclusive judge of the extent of its own powers; and that in case of a violation of the constitution, however deliberate, palpable and dangerous, a state has no constitutional redress, except where the matter can be brought before the Supreme Court, whose decision must be final and conclusive on the subject. flashcard sets. It was about protectionist tariffs.The speeches between Webster and Hayne themselves were not planned. Shedding weak tears over sufferings which had existence only in their own sickly imaginations, these friends of humanity set themselves systematically to work to seduce the slaves of the South from their masters. It is to state, and to defend, what I conceive to be the true principles of the Constitution under which we are here assembled. It cannot be doubted, and is not denied, that before the formation of the constitution, each state was an independent sovereignty, possessing all the rights and powers appertaining to independent nations; nor can it be denied that, after the Constitution was formed, they remained equally sovereign and independent, as to all powers, not expressly delegated to the federal government. There was no clear winner of the debate, but the Union's victory over the Confederacy just a few decades later brought Webster's ideas to fruition.
. TeachingAmericanHistory.org is a project of the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University, 401 College Avenue, Ashland, Ohio 44805 PHONE (419) 289-5411 TOLL FREE (877) 289-5411 EMAIL [emailprotected], The Congress Sends Twelve Amendments to the States, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 3rd Debate Part I, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 3rd Debate Part II, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 4th Debate Part I, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 4th Debate Part II, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 6th Debate Part I, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 6th Debate Part II, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 7th Debate Part I, National Disfranchisement of Colored People, William Lloyd Garrison to Thomas Shipley. While the debaters argued about slavery, the economy, protection tariffs, and western land, the real implication was the meaning of the United States Constitution. While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. At the time of the debate, Webster was serving his term as Senator of Massachusetts. But, according to the gentlemans reading, the object of the Constitution was to consolidate the government, and the means would seem to be, the promotion of injustice, causing domestic discord, and depriving the states and the people of the blessings of liberty forever. . For the next several days, the men traded speeches which contemporaries of the time described as the greatest orations ever delivered in the Senate. Nullification, Webster maintained, was a political absurdity. Connecticut and other northeastern states were worried about the pace of growth and wanted to slow this down. . What followed, the Webster Hayne debate, was one of the most famous exchanges in Senate history. The Union to be preserved, while it suits local and temporary purposes to preserve it; and to be sundered whenever it shall be found to thwart such purposes. In this moment in American history, the federal government had relatively little power. Such interference has never been supposed to be within the power of government; nor has it been, in any way, attempted. Our Core Document Collection allows students to read history in the words of those who made it. . Broadside Advertisement for Runaway Slave, Forcing Slavery Down the Throat of a Free-Soiler, Free & Slave-holding States and Territories. Sir, the very chief end, the main design, for which the whole Constitution was framed and adopted, was to establish a government that should not be obliged to act through state agency, or depend on state opinion and state discretion. Between January and May 1830, twenty-one of the forty-eight senators delivered a staggering sixty-five speeches on the nature of the Union. . . The purpose of the Constitution was to permit cooperation between states under a shared political standard, but that meant that any growth in a federal government threatened the sovereignty of the states. Perhaps a quotation from a speech in Parliament in 1803 of Lord Castlereagh, Robert Stewart, 2nd Marquess of Londonderry (17691822) during a debate over the conduct of British officials in India. Sir, when gentlemen speak of the effects of a common fund, belonging to all the states, as having a tendency to consolidation, what do they mean? But the feeling is without all adequate cause, and the suspicion which exists wholly groundless. They switched from a. the tariff of 1828 to national power . . When, however, the gentleman proceeded to contrast the state of Ohio with Kentucky, to the disadvantage of the latter, I listened to him with regret. In this regard, Webster anticipated an argument that Abraham Lincoln made in his First Inaugural Address (1861). sir, this is but the old story. Foote Idea To Limit The Sale Of Public Lands In The West To New Settlers. . Speech of Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, January 26 and 27, 1830. The Hayne-Webster Debate was an unplanned series of speeches in the Senate, during which Robert Hayne of South Carolina interpreted the Constitution as little more than a treaty between sovereign states, and Daniel Webster expressed the concept of the United States as one nation. The people were not satisfied with it, and undertook to establish a better. When the gentleman says the Constitution is a compact between the states, he uses language exactly applicable to the old Confederation. I say, the right of a state to annul a law of Congress, cannot be maintained, but on the ground of the unalienable right of man to resist oppression; that is to say, upon the ground of revolution.
Webster-Hayne debate - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Who Won the Webster-Hayne Debate of 1830? - Abbeville Institute Most people of the time supported a small central government and strong state governments, so the federal government was much weaker than you might have expected. Daniel Webster, in a dramatic speech, showed the danger of the states' rights doctrine, which permitted each State to decide for itself which laws were unconstitutional, claiming it would lead to civil war. . They tell us, in the letter submitting the Constitution to the consideration of the country, that, in all our deliberations on this subject, we kept steadily in our view that which appears to us the greatest interest of every true Americanthe consolidation of our Unionin which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety; perhaps our national existence. Tariff of 1816 History & Significance | What was the Tariff of 1816? . . Certainly, sir, I am, and ever have been of that opinion. . This is a delicate and sensitive point, in southern feeling; and of late years it has always been touched, and generally with effect, whenever the object has been to unite the whole South against northern men, or northern measures. There is not, and never has been, a disposition in the North to interfere with these interests of the South. Are we in that condition still? The gentleman has made an eloquent appeal to our hearts in favor of union. . Rather, the debate eloquently captured the ideas and ideals of Northern and Southern representatives of the time, highlighting and summarizing the major issues of governance of the era. Famous Speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. MTEL Speech: Ethical & Legal Communications, MTEL Speech: Delivering Effective Speeches, MTEL Speech: Using Communication Aids for Speeches, NY Regents Exam - US History and Government: Tutoring Solution, Business 104: Information Systems and Computer Applications, GED Math: Quantitative, Arithmetic & Algebraic Problem Solving, GED Social Studies: Civics & Government, US History, Economics, Geography & World, CSET Foundational-Level General Science (215) Prep, CSET English Subtests I & III (105 & 107): Practice & Study Guide, Managing Risk to Enhance & Maintain Your Health, Types of Healthcare Professionals & Delivery Systems, Consumer Health: Laws, Regulations & Agencies, The Role of School Health Advisory Councils in Texas, Teaching Sensitive or Controversial Health Issues, Calculating the Square Root of 27: How-To & Steps, Linear Transformations: Properties & Examples, Chemical Safety: Preparation, Use, Storage, and Disposal, Spectrophotometers: Definition, Uses, and Parts, What is an Autoclave? [was] fixed, forever, the character of the population in the vast regions Northwest of the Ohio, by excluding from them involuntary servitude.
Webster and Hayne on the American Constitution To all this, sir, I was disposed most cordially to respond. Are we yet at the mercy of state discretion, and state construction? On that system, Carolina has no more interest in a canal in Ohio than in Mexico. State governments were in control of their own affairs and expected little intervention from the federal government. They cherish no deep and fixed regard for it, flowing from a thorough conviction of its absolute and vital necessity to our welfare. It was motivated by a dispute over the continued sale of western lands, an important source of revenue for the federal government. Liberty has been to them the greatest of calamities, the heaviest of curses. What a commentary on the wisdom, justice, and humanity, of the Southern slave owner is presented by the example of certain benevolent associations and charitable individuals elsewhere. An undefinable dread now went abroad that men were planning against the peace of the nation, that the Union was in danger; and citizens looked more closely after its safety and welfare. The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts [Senator Daniel Webster] has gone out of his way to pass a high eulogium on the state of Ohio. Well, the southern states were infuriated.
Webster-Hayne Debates, 1830 - Bill of Rights Institute . But I do not understand the doctrine now contended for to be that which, for the sake of distinctness, we may call the right of revolution. In our contemplation, Carolina and Ohio are parts of the same country; states, united under the same general government, having interests, common, associated, intermingled. But the topic which became the leading feature of the whole debate and gave it an undying interest was that of nullification, in which Hayne and Webster came forth as chief antagonists. lessons in math, English, science, history, and more. Some of Webster's personal friends had felt nervous over what appeared to them too hasty a period for preparation. to expose them to the temptations inseparable from the direction and control of a fund which might be enlarged or diminished almost at pleasure, without imposing burthens upon the people? Webster-Hayne Debate book. These debates transformed into a national crisis when South Carolina threatened . The taxes paid by foreign nations to export American cotton, for example, generated lots of money for the government. The impression which has gone abroad, of the weakness of the South, as connected with the slave question, exposes us to such constant attacks, has done us so much injury, and is calculated to produce such infinite mischiefs, that I embrace the occasion presented by the remarks of the gentleman from Massachusetts, to declare that we are ready to meet the question promptly and fearlessly. South Carolinas Declaration of the Causes of Sece Distribution of the Slave Population by State. . The United States, under the Constitution and federal government, was a single, unified nation, not a coalition of sovereign states. The honorable member himself is not, I trust, and can never be, one of these.
Winners and Losers History's Famous Debates - Medium The debates between daniel webster of massachusetts and robert hayne of south carolina gave. . He entered the Senate on that memorable day with a slow and stately step and took his seat as though unconscious of the loud buzz of expectant interest with which the crowded auditory greeted his appearance. . Webster-Hayne Debate 1830, an unplanned series of speeches in the Senate, during which Robert Hayne of South Carolina interpreted the Constitution as little more than a treaty between sovereign states, and Daniel Webster expressed the concept of the United States as one nation. Webster rose the next day in his seat to make his reply. Well, it's important to remember that the nation was still young and much different than what we think of today. Inflamed and mortified at this repulse, Hayne soon returned to the assault, primed with a two-day speech, which at great length vaunted the patriotism of South Carolina and bitterly attacked New England, dwelling particularly upon her conduct during the late war. The people had had quite enough of that kind of government, under the Confederacy. . How do Webster and Hayne differ in regard to their understandings of the proper relationship among the several states and between the states and the national government? By establishing justice, promoting domestic tranquility, and securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. This is the true reading of the Constitution. Will it promote the welfare of the United States to have at our disposal a permanent treasury, not drawn from the pockets of the people, but to be derived from a source independent of them? . It has always been regarded as a matter of domestic policy, left with the states themselves, and with which the federal government had nothing to do. A four-speech debate between Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Robert Hayne of South Carolina, in January 1830. There was no winner or loser in the Webster-Hayne debate. Hayne launched his confident javelin at the New England States. we find the most opposite and irreconcilable opinions between the two parties which I have before described. I maintain that, from the day of the cession of the territories by the states to Congress, no portion of the country has acted, either with more liberality or more intelligence, on the subject of the Western lands in the new states, than New England.
The Webster-Hayne Debate: An Inquiry into the Nature of Union by Stefan . Sir, we will not stop to inquire whether the black man, as some philosophers have contended, is of an inferior race, nor whether his color and condition are the effects of a curse inflicted for the offences of his ancestors. It would be equally fatal to the sovereignty and independence of the states. I'm imagining that your answer is probably 'I do.' . I understand the gentleman to maintain, that, without revolution, without civil commotion, without rebellion, a remedy for supposed abuse and transgression of the powers of the general government lies in a direct appeal to the interference of the state governments. This is the sense in which the Framers of the Constitution use the word consolidation; and in which sense I adopt and cherish it. Webster-Hayne Debate. Noah grew a vineyard, got drunk on wine and lay naked. The Revelation on Celestial Marriage: Trouble Amon Hon. . The Webster-Hayne debate laid out key issues faced by the Senate in the 1820s and 1830s. .
Competing Conceptions of Union and Ordered Liberty in Nullification Crisis | American Battlefield Trust I propose to consider it, and to compare it with the Constitution. They will not destroy it, they will not impair itthey will only save, they will only preserve, they will only strengthen it! Consolidation!that perpetual cry, both of terror and delusionconsolidation! . Now, I wish to be informedhowthis state interference is to be put in practice, without violence, bloodshed, and rebellion. . No doubt can exist, that, before the states entered into the compact, they possessed the right to the fullest extent, of determining the limits of their own powersit is incident to all sovereignty. I did not utter a single word, which any ingenuity could torture into an attack on the slavery of the South. The WebsterHayne debate was a debate in the United States between Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Senator Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina that took place on January 1927, 1830 on the topic of protectionist tariffs. . Hayne's First Speech (January 19, 1830) Webster's First Reply to Hayne (January 20, 1830) Hayne's Second Speech (January 21, 1830) Webster's Second Reply to Hayne (January 26-27, 1830) This page was last edited on 13 June 2021, at . Prejudice Not Natural: The American Colonization "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? An error occurred trying to load this video. I understand him to maintain, that the ultimate power of judging of the constitutional extent of its own authority, is not lodged exclusively in the general government, or any branch of it; but that, on the contrary, the states may lawfully decide for themselves, and each state for itself, whether, in a given case, the act of the general government transcends its power. In January 1830, a debate on the nature of sovereignty in the American federal union occurred in the United States Senate between Senators Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Robert Hayne of South Carolina. She has a BA in political science. And here it will be necessary to go back to the origin of the federal government. The Most Famous Senate Speech January 26, 1830 The debate began simply enough, centering on the seemingly prosaic subjects of tariff and public land policy. Well, you're not alone. The 1830 Webster-Hayne debate centered around the South Carolina nullification crisis of the late 1820s, but historians have largely ignored the sectional interests underpinning Webster's argument on behalf of Unionism and a transcendent nationalism. I distrust, therefore, sir, the policy of creating a great permanent national treasury, whether to be derived from public lands or from any other source. . I understand him to maintain this right, as a right existing under the Constitution; not as a right to overthrow it, on the ground of extreme necessity, such as would justify violent revolution. My life upon it, sir, they would not. . Whose agent is it? . This means that South Carolina is essentially its own nation, Georgia is its own nation, and so on. Webster's speech aroused the latent spirit of patriotism. . . It was plenary then, and never having been surrendered, must be plenary now. . What started as a debate over the Tariff of Abominations soon morphed into debates over state and federal sovereignty and liberty and disunion. . I deem far otherwise of the Union of the states; and so did the Framers of the Constitution themselves. The idea of a strong federal government The ability of the people to revolt against an unfair government The theory that the states' may vote against unfair laws The role of the president in commanding the government 2 See answers Advertisement holesstanham Answer: The Destiny of America, Speech at the Dedication o An Address. Explore the Webster-Hayne debate. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. The measures of the federal government have, it is true, prostrated her interests, and will soon involve the whole South in irretrievable ruin. It was a speech delivered before a crowded auditory, and loud were the Southern exultations that he was more than a match for Webster. I spoke, sir, of the ordinance of 1787, which prohibited slavery, in all future times, northwest of the Ohio,[6] as a measure of great wisdom and foresight; and one which had been attended with highly beneficial and permanent consequences. . It develops the gentlemans whole political system; and its answer expounds mine. I would definitely recommend Study.com to my colleagues. .
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